Whew! The 2024 election is finally behind us and we can get back to our day jobs as utility communicators and marketers.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of chatbots like ChatGPT, Scribe, and Bard, proved to be a topic of very high interest among readers this year. Beyond my own dispatches in EEC Perspectives, a torrent of articles and conference sessions were devoted to it. I have dabbled with GenAI myself. Don’t worry, I wrote this blog without any AI assistance.
GenAI is not the only topic on your mind and mine. As the holiday season approaches, I am grateful for many things. In particular, I am thankful to the readers of EEC Perspectives for being readers, suggesters of topics, and, every once in a while, gentle correctors of fact when I needed it. Like the kind note that reminded me that Ecclesiastes is a book in the Old Testament, not the New Testament.
Below is a re-gifting of our best-read blogs from 2024. I hope that you can take a break from your year-end self-assessment, college football and holiday parties to check out the content that most resonated with your professional peers this year. The key to your increased success in 2025 could lie in one of these posts!
Generative AI Chatbots and Unsupervised Children
Those of you who have experimented with GenAI chatbots know they can be very useful for doing basic fact-based research, such as summarizing how heat pumps work or listing 10 tips about energy safety. With proper adult supervision, those platforms can help you get written materials out the door faster than you could do on your own. What those tools can’t do, however, is uncover how your customers or employees feel about your utility, or why they chose to participate in one of your programs. For that, I’m afraid, you need to actually talk to them. Yep, sometimes using that awesome 19th century invention, the telephone. For more on the importance of direct interactions with stakeholders, click here.
AMI Communications: Still a Thing
The federal government began shoveling utility infrastructure money out to utilities 15 years ago when it enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which included Smart Grid Investment Grants (SGIG). By now, I thought that the “Smart Grid” vault had been emptied. Wrong! Federal laws enacted since then, including the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, have funneled gazillions more dollars into that vault. Even if your utility is not seeking federal “Smart Grid” grants, communicating with your customers about the electric grid could get “smarter” by reading this post.
Happy Hours, Tuesday Movie Matinees, and Utility Pricing
For over 100 years, most utilities followed the same approach to invoice customers for the services they consume: a fixed price for the commodity (electricity, gas, or water) multiplied by the number of units consumed (kWh, therms, or CCF). Add in a fixed charge, and taxes, and you’re done. All the heavy lifting was over. Like a lot of other things for providers of essential services, that’s changing. The cost of electric, gas, or water service can change, sometimes dramatically, based on market conditions. Some utilities have known this for 30+ years. Others are just now getting to the party. Click here, then go whoop it up!
The Prophylactic Power of a Brand
Don’t worry, this is a PG-13 blog. But in the same way a condom can protect against disease and pregnancy, a strong brand can help a utility ward off scams, lies, disinformation, and misinformation. Utilities are big targets for liars and scamsters of all kinds. But a strong brand gives utilities the benefit of the doubt. A strong positive brand would cause consumers to ask themselves, “Why would my utility start sending someone to my door to tell me my bill is overdue, and they’re willing to take payment right now, when I have already made payment?” Click here to see how your brand can be your superpower, or your kryptonite.
What Do Carly Simon, Hunter S. Thompson, and LADWP Know That You Don’t?
If you are of a certain age, I bet you remember Carly Simon singing about an apricot-colored scarf, or Hunter S. Thompson’s description of his endlessly creative drug and alcohol abuse. These were compelling, colorful opening hooks that kept you listening or reading. Journalists call it a lede, and mastering it is the key to keeping your audience’s attention in any setting. Whether you are writing or speaking at a conference, you need to grab your audience’s attention and not let go. You can read all about it here.
